


My Immortal Beloved

by Some_Impossible_Fairytale



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Carenzo - Freeform, Elena Gilbert Bashing, F/M, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Mild Language, Paris - Freeform, Pining! Klaus, katherine is an enabler, klaroline travel the world, literary exchanges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 20:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13725840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Some_Impossible_Fairytale/pseuds/Some_Impossible_Fairytale
Summary: “What are you doing here? And on today of all days?!”Klaus’ eyebrow quirks in confusion. How could he not know what day it was?“Paris” she enunciates sharply. “On Valentine’s Day.”When a common thought ends in Caroline and Klaus deciding to visit Paris on the same day, they get more than they bargained for.





	My Immortal Beloved

 “Caroline?”

“ _Christ_!” Caroline very nearly shouts at the crisp voice right in her ear. The crisp _British_ voice. Whirling around reveals, of course, exactly who she expects. Klaus Mikaelson, looking as infuriating and attractive as ever and uncertain in an adorable sort of way that she didn’t think was possible.

“Not exactly” He chokes on a laugh at her surprised yell (good, the bastard) and puts his hands up on surrender. “I apologise, love. I didn’t mean to scare you”

Caroline tears off her sunglasses in response, to level him with the full effect of her scowl. “Seriously?!” she demands, anger in full flow not at being snuck up on – but at having her moment of reflection ruined. “What are **you** doing here? And on _today_ of all days?!”

Klaus’ eyebrow quirks in confusion. How could he not know what day it was?

“Paris” she enunciates sharply. “On Valentine’s Day.” Those plush lips twist into a roguish grin and she hates him, she thinks as she fights the blush warming her cheeks, she hates him and that inviting grin in that inviting mouth.

“Look,” Caroline defends, hand on her hip “I know it’s cliched okay, but sue me I just wanted to spend Valentine’s Day here _once.”_

In the City of Love. On her own.

C’est la vie.

A full blown smile blooms, lighting up his whole face and she wants to stomp on him. He hasn’t changed at all, neither of them have physically of course but he still looks at her with that gleam in his eye that reminds her of the Kiss in the corner of Mrs. Darling’s mouth that no-one could ever get at. What business has he got looking at her like wants to devour her whole?!

“As do most people. _But,”_ he steps closer, eyes never leaving hers “most people see the Eiffel Tower. Not-“ he gestured up at the intimidating beauty of Notre Dame that Caroline had been savouring before being interrupted.

“I did it yesterday” Caroline retorts, pushing her sunglasses back onto her head and folding her arms. With Enzo, not that she’ll tell Klaus that. _I’ll take you, wherever you want. Paris, Rome….Tokyo?_

But Enzo is spending the day with Gia and Caroline didn’t want to third wheel.

“Ah, so have you already visited her?” Klaus eyes drag away from Caroline’s face back up to the Cathedral’s iconic towers.

“No, I was just about to head in” Caroline admits, unclenching her fingers to reveal the euros in her palm. It’s been ten years and yet they’ve fallen back into their pattern as if not a day has passed.

“Alone? None of that lot with you? Elena?” Caroline ignores the jibe at her friends to raise an eyebrow at Klaus in return, surprised that he would still be interested in Elena’s whereabouts after so many years.

Her own eyebrow raises in response to his question, “Has anyone ever just told you where the doppelgänger is?”

Klaus scowled for a moment, muttering something about bad information. Caroline decides it’s probably not the best time to mention that it was _Katherine,_ flitting around with her and Enzo all throughout Europe. Thank God Kat had decided to do extra retail therapy today. Elena’s in Beijing with Bonnie. Caroline had considered joining them for Chinese New Year in a few days but Paris had seemed to be calling her.

Sometimes, she wonders about fate. There’s a twinkle of sunlight hits the cathedral that makes it seem like the saints are winking at her.

“You’ll love it” Klaus offers, nodding towards the building behind them with that strange innate certainty he seems to possess regarding her taste. Traitorously, Caroline thinks of that blue dress for the Mikaelson Family Ball which Kat had insisted she pack for their jaunt round Europe. The dress that Klaus had presented her with, like a King to his consort – Caroline stops that dangerous thought in its track, as she’s been doing with every Klaus related thought for years now – outside of the bedroom.

But thinking of that dress, safely in its garment bag automatically leads to wondering about the diamond bracelet, her birthday gift that she had thrown back at him on the same evening. Whether he kept it, or destroyed it as she did the drawing.

“Thank you” Caroline returns, cringing at how stilted it sounds.

The two immortals stand there motionless amongst the sea of humans milling about, just staring at each other, silently. Not quite strangers, never strangers – waiting each other out. The last time, the last goodbye had been Klaus pulling Caroline in for one last kiss, hot and desperate as a starving man as he zipped up her green jacket over her breasts. The ruins of her floral tank top left on the forest floor.

After he’d promised to leave and never come back. But she couldn’t extract a vow that he would leave and never come back from **Paris.**

He probably had more of a claim to the city than she did anyway.

Neither of them move, two planets stuck in their orbit. If they let each other go here, it might be a life time before they see each other again. _Maybe in a year, or in a century, you’ll turn up at my door and let me show you what the world has to offer…_

In the end, Klaus speaks first and because it’s Klaus he pushes.

“Well then, may I accompany you Miss Forbes?”

It’s spoken so sincerely, almost sweetly if that word could ever be ascribed to the Original Hybrid. They haven’t seen each other in nearly ten years and while Klaus is probably getting regular reports of where she is according to Katherine’s lifelong knowledge of where Klaus is at any given moment, he seemed genuinely surprised to see her in front of the Cathedral.

Klaus is too old to betray his emotions so readily so while he’s not shifting foot to foot, his entire frame appears to blur, like he’s vibrating with nerves. Maybe, like her, he’d pondered whether life had changed Caroline too much for their connection, ever covered with hostility, to still be alive.

 “I could give you a tour,” He draws close, eyes never leaving hers. “I know Notre Dame like the back of my hand. Things no human tour guide would know to show you.”

It’s childish, but it’s worked before and after all – all’s fair in love and war.

“Come on, take a chance, Caroline. _I dare you_ ”

It’s then that Caroline remembers what a dirty fighter Klaus really is behind that soft, lovely smile that only she has ever seen. Teasing her with the promise of secrets only an immortal could know, history brought alive again in a way no book will ever record.

He knows he’s got her too.

Klaus spins on his heel, dark wool blazer flaring out for a moment, just a touch too fast to pass for human, and offers the crook of his arm. She’s 27 and this is her first time in Paris. With Klaus. Just like he’d promised, her mind whispers traitorously, all those years ago. _Let me show you everything the world has to offer…_

_Let me show you._

What the hell.

Sliding her arm through his with a silent smile, and ignoring the flutter that the massive smile Klaus returns gives her, Caroline fixes her eyes on the bells of Notre Dame.

****

Of course, they immediately get into a fight at the ticket booth.

“Nothing ever rattles you does it?” says Caroline, paging through the guide book he’d paid for as well as their tickets. Despite Caroline nearly compelling the poor operator to just fucking ignore Klaus and take her money already in an attempt to go Dutch about it, he’d smoothly tapped his debit card on the reader and beaten her too it with another one of his  _“Easy love, you’re making a scene”_

_“I am **not** the bad guy” she’d shot back, sticking her tongue at him and trying not to giggle when he winked. _

She’s not as rich as he is, the Midas of the Immortals – she’s imagining – but comfortable enough to look after Liz and own a house in New York (admittedly along with Enzo) where the population’s too, well populous to identify immortals.

The massive oaken doors stand open before them, a pool of sunlight slicing through the gloom to light a path like the angels’ tread, leading the way into the cathedral. It lends a greatness to the moment that brings Caroline up short, the fact that she’s finally _here_ in the flesh, a satisfaction sinking into her skin at the realisation of her goal, another landmark on her checklist.

Klaus’ hand comes featherlight at her back, his handsome face peeping in her periphery. “Ready love?”

At her soft nod, Klaus has to tamp down on the urge to kiss her cheek, so entrancing is Caroline in her entrancement. All big shining eyes and hesitant wonder. It’s what had pushed the request to come with her off his tongue, the desire to bask in her appreciation for the world a while longer. To see the world anew through her eyes.

Gently, he takes her arm again and leads the way inside “Here we are then” he murmurs, restating his promise “ _History”_

*****

In the beginning, Klaus tries to keep them on track, methodically working their way from alcove to alcove, moving from one statute to the next but Caroline’s buzzing with energy, dragging Klaus this way and that, zinging across the floor like a pinball machine.

In her fervour she’d long let go of his arm in favour of sliding her hand down to take hold of Klaus’ own. Subconscious or not, Klaus lets her, only going so far as to interlace their fingers lest he lose her in the crowds. It’s not like he’s the hand-holding type but whilst he had vowed that hope that still stands strong in his long dead heart to be her last love, her last everything really, privately, Caroline Elizabeth Forbes is proving to be Klaus Mikaelson’s first in so many things.

 

It's when they’re lingering under the stunning beauty of the Rose Window, illuminated in it’s kaleidoscope of light that Klaus realises that there’s more to Caroline’s trip that simple appreciation for a Parisian monument. She’s humming something, haunting and sweet to herself and more intriguing still is the way she blushes and the last note peters out as their eyes meet.

Caroline’s blushed before, but never this much in a space of time. It’s a pleasing note, to catch her quite literally off her guard. Caroline’s always been a reward, a Queen among women and once she lets down her drawbridge  he revels in the treasures behind those walls.

It’s been easier than it ever was in Mystic Falls. _Absence makes the heart grow fonder._

“A nightingale” he murmurs. “Can I ask what you’re singing?”

Is it the rosy light or does she look embarrassed rather than shy? “You know the Hunchback of Notre Dame?”

Klaus nods, even more intrigued at how music relates to Victor Hugo’s epic that had saved the very walls to which it was dedicated.

“The Disney film”

Klaus’ smile, if it’s possible, gets wider.

“Shut up” Caroline scowls, folding her arms and fixing her eyes on the window in stubborn silence. It seems Klaus may be rusty in Carolingian after all, though the picture she presents brings forth a memory of sudden clarity there’s an evening before the fireplace where she’d come to him for help about a prom dress of all things, rather than the forces of evil bent on a rampage.

“Never be ashamed of the things that bring you joy my love” he says, pecking her cheek, using the endearment so naturally that neither of them realise he’s said it until it’s too late.

“And if that’s the case, I have something which I think you’ll particularly enjoy”

***

Climbing the countless stairs to the lift is a task in itself, not because of the longevity of the climb but the sheer irritation of trying to countermand his eagerness, particularly with Caroline damn near pressed to his back in her curiousity. Maintaining a human pace is a necessary evil sometimes, but this is getting ridiculous. Caroline had murmured in his ear about whether they ought to be complaining about the strain on their thighs at all this climbing but Klaus had just scoffed and reminded her that there were far better ways for them to exercise their thighs.

They spent the rest of the climb in comfortable silence, contemplating that particular proposal.

He knew she would fall in love with history as she had fallen for immortality. As she may one day fall in love with him.

Hope, Klaus had found over the centuries, was a cruel mistress. A torch leading you through the tunnel a step too quickly to be caught.

When the guard opens the door, Klaus stands to one side so that the reveal belongs to Caroline alone. As much as he wants Paris to be their city, in experience and perhaps in name one day, as glad as he is that she permitted his gate crashing her meticulous schedule….some things belong to individuals alone.

Such as the rooftop of Notre Dame.

Rosy light, even rosier than the window they’ve just left, spills across the balconies. Klaus follows Caroline closely, catching at her elegant fingers gently and squeezing. She’s cooing in soft raptures of delight which he can’t help but imagine spilling from his bed tomorrow morning.

He’s been beating himself up for seducing her in a fucking forest of all places for over a decade, he won’t be making the same mistake twice.

Caroline leans her bare arms on the balcony and stares out of the city, with a sigh of deep contentment. “I’ll bet the King himself doesn’t have a view like this” in a voice that’s not her own, that belongs to a character from some bygone age.

Klaus doesn’t know for certain but he’d bet a decade she’s quoting Esmeralda somehow.

For the first time in his fairly sizeable life Klaus Mikaelson considers actually watching a Disney movie.

“No” he agrees, coming to rest beside her, so that their shoulders rubbed “Versailles?”

“Thursday. Yes, you can come”

One question answered he skips right to the next one. “So, if I may, what prompted this particular visit? Why now of all times?”

It’s pushing, as Klaus is always wont to do, sometimes to his detriment (as his family life can attest) and not always in the right direction.

_Curiosity killed the cat. But satisfaction brought it back._

Yet Liz Forbes still lives, and Caroline had always been bound by her human life in a way so many other vampires seem to forget. So, the fact that Caroline would venture beyond the borders of Virginia begs the question of _why?_

Caroline sighs in frustration as though this has been something she’s still unconvinced about.

“Mom wouldn’t shut up about it, you know?” Caroline rubs her daylight ring thoughtfully, staring out at Paris. “She embraced my vampirism more fully after graduation.  Insisted I get the hell out of there, either because things had quieted down for once or maybe because she was worried it never would, I don’t know. Anyway, with Enzo around – _shut up_ – I think she finally felt I’d be safer than on my own. “

“And why didn’t she call me?” Klaus asks, trying not to be angry at Liz for looking out for her daughter. Although why she would prefer that paltry St. John to the man she knew would treat Caroline as a Queen is concerning.

“You were in New Orleans and not to be disturbed remember?”

Klaus scowls at the skyline.

“Anyway,” Caroline starts, chirpily, determined as always to keep the mood positive  “As old Laverne here says,” Caroline says, jovially tapping the cheek of a gargoyle beside her affectionately “Life’s not a spectator sport. If watching is all you’re gunna do, you’re gunna watch life go on without you. So here I am.”

_Laverne?_

“So does this meet your expectations then?” because of course she will have some.

“It exceeds them” Caroline congratulates the cathedral, swinging back and forward “but then you always do”

Klaus stares at her, a grin curbing at his open mouth. “Was that a – _compliment_ Miss Forbes?”

“It might have been. Don’t get too used to it, or else your Crown won’t fit”

He’s definitely not telling her he’s technically got an Empire these days. There are few people who can leave him standing the way she does.

“I used to be terrified of monsters, like these” Caroline murmurs, running her fingers down the gargoyle’s spiked spine in a thoughtful caress. “But it’s seems a bit hypocritical now that I’m one too”

His denial is instantaneous, bordering on vitriolic. If Caroline, angel in face, voice and temperament is a monster than he is definitely the abomination Mikael would have him be.

“Monsters only upset people my love because they escape classification. You cannot confine what you cannot define”

Caroline smiles, a soft, grateful thing that reminds him of an injured bird – something to be protected and avenged all at once.

“Celebrate the fact that you’re no longer bound by ‘trivial’ human convention. You’re free” The intense urge to kiss Caroline escalates as she quotes him, from all those years ago.

“And capable of being saved” he returns, remembering another time when she had been lying, injured because of him and touched that last human part of him, brought the boy from the village to the surface again.

 

“As Notre Dame herself was.”

Caroline quirks her eyebrow in askance and Klaus feels himself relax, confident enough to bring his hand to rest atop hers on the gargoyle’s grainy back.

“When Victor Hugo wrote _Hunchback_ , this place was falling apart at the seams, a relic of days gone by. Louis would have torn it down but when Victor’s book was published it was so popular, the way he’d described it – as Parisians then knew it – the people fell in love all over again and the King was left but no choice but to save it”

Caroline strokes Laverne’s head affectionately, unable to imagine the city without the cathedral, without this view.

“But, it’s so beautiful!” she protested, leaning forward to hug Laverne briefly.

“Architecture and books are the only love letters that stands the test of time” Klaus notes the fine tremor in her ivory flesh and wordlessly slips his woollen blazer round her shoulders, enjoying the soft touch of her hand over the dark collar to keep it place. The more carnal thoughts of his wolf, marking her with his scent need to be left for later when there’s no danger to a monument or any humans.

Knocking down trees in a forest is one thing, not to mention the fact that they’re in a church of all places.

“I’d like that” Caroline agrees “a love that lasts eternal” There’s a beat of silence as they digest that desire, she’s probably spoken without thinking but it’s as close to an acknowledgement as he’s likely to get.

“Eternity means something different to us” he reminds, because at heart he’s more masochist than sadist.

“Some infinities are larger than other infinities” Apparently the Parisian air makes Caroline particularly literary.

Interesting.

They leave the rooftops soon after, Caroline taking one last loving look at the view before allowing Klaus to lead her out, out into the now midday sun. It’s a repeat of their surprise meeting this morning, in front of the Cathedral, with Klaus trying to find a way not to let Caroline go.

She’s busy tucking her ticket and guide book, along with several things from the gift shop (she’s making full use of his wallet that’s for sure) into her backpack when he asks “What have you got planned for the rest of the afternoon then love?”

“Opera Garnier” Caroline looks around and her shoulders relax when her eyes fall on the sign for the underground.

“Have you seen _Phantom of the Opera_?”

“Not live. I’ve seen the film. Gerard Butler” she says by way of explanation, distractedly, pulling out her purse to probably rifle through for her ticket.

He might have to text Rebekah about that one. Right after he buys tickets for them on the West End. Even Enzo if he has too.

It seems this is the end of the line.

“Do you know what stop to get off at or do we need to check the station map?”

 **We.** Was she inviting him to continue the tour? Or expecting it? Klaus waits out her fiddling about until Caroline, evidently displeased at his silence shoots a glance upwards.

“You’ll have to buy a ticket. Or have you got something against public transport?” she teases, slipping her own ticket into the pocket of her shorts and sliding her backpack into place.

“Not at all sweetheart. All part of the experience” Klaus lets out the breath he’d apparently been holding. _Christ indeed._ What was it about this woman, who was still in all honesty a baby vampire, not even out of a human life span in her years, that made him act like a teenage boy?

Strategically, he ought to be viewing his feelings for Caroline, his love for her in all honesty as a weakness. Family meant loyalty and Caroline was not family. But her loyalty, even when their interests had differed, their mutual desire to protect the other from the fallout of being The Hybrid and the doppleganger’s friend, her attempts to get him to be good could not be ignored.

Nor could the fact that in the interests of honesty, Klaus knew that his love for her, the hope of her love for him, made him stronger, faster, more astute.

 _Love, loyalty - that’s power!_ Damn Elijah.

And he revels in surprising her, watching the adorable half glances of disbelief that the great Klaus Mikaelson takes the metro that Caroline keeps shooting from under his arm the whole journey from Notre Dame to Palais Garnier. It seems out from under the thumb of Mystic Falls, trying to reconcile who she used to be as a human, paired with the stronger, more confident vampire she has become, Caroline relaxes into their connection.

Without Elena or Bonnie to judge her, Stefan and Damon to chide her, Caroline can hold his hand and does. Caroline will let Klaus wrap his arm around her and lean into his chest against the sway of the train chattering down the tracks.

Maybe Enzo isn’t _that_ bad for her after all.

The beauty of Paris’ opera house works its charm on Caroline as immediately as Notre Dame had done and it isn’t until Klaus gets them in the ‘Phantom’s Box’ that he actually manages to get a word in edgeways.

“I came here to see Beethoven once.” He voices in the sudden quiet that he’s coming to realise is Caroline soaking in the atmosphere, because she’s unsure when she’ll be here again. Immortality and the freedom to go wherever she lives doesn’t seem to have sunk in fully quite yet. Beethoven’s music sings through his memory, it had been one of the few times he had been in the city with Rebekah and had brought her here with Elijah to celebrate their reunion. Hearing the great composer had not been enough and the Mikaelsons had soon invited the artist to their townhouse as part of the glittering salon they were constructing there of the best and brightest.

A pretty face beside Beethoven’s swims momentarily before Klaus’ mind’s eye, who the man had introduced as his ‘Immortal Beloved’. Looking at Caroline now, Klaus smiles to himself, deciding it’s a fitting sobriquet for the young woman beside him.  

“Hmmm” she hums, leaning over the plush velvet covered rail, evidently not listening. It’s then that Klaus spots her phone lit up in her hand, a new text message illuminating the screen.

**1.30pm Elena: Hey Care! How’s Paris? The New Year celebrations here in Bejiing are the best!!! Hurry up and get here! We miss you <3 xxx**

**1.31pm Elena: P.S. Ditch Katherine if you can. Tell her Klaus is here :P xxx**

So it was Katherine, not Elena that Caroline was protecting. Even that bastard woman was not immune to Caroline’s charms.

Caroline’s tapping her nail on the screen absently but from the distant stare in her eyes he’d wager she’s considering dropping the phone into the empty orchestra pit below.

“Something the matter beloved?” he tries out the name quietly, in this timeless place, hoping to draw her back into their bubble, where their connection is being nurtured on neutral ground, refusing to let it be burst by Elena sodding Gilbert from a whole other time zone.

Those damn Petrovas exist to plague him.

“What?” it comes out sharply, proving Caroline was listening after all.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call me that. Or love, or beloved for that matter.” The words fly out of her mouth like a flock of startled birds, sudden and stuttering.

“I shouldn’t be here, not with you” Caroline shoots upright so hard she bangs her knees on the brass bar and bends it out of shape. Her hands flutter nervously and obviously distressed that she might do more harm than good in trying to rectify the situation, Caroline scoops up her bags and practically vaults over the seats towards the door.

Quickly, Klaus bends the bar back so that’s practically unnoticeable before giving chase, stalking round the seats in pursuit of a reasoned explanation as to her logic “Why? Because Elena Gilbert says so? Why must your life be measured by her standards?”

“Because they won’t accept you! Us! They’d never be okay with us being – together” she manages finally, waving her hand dramatically to convey the sheer width and depth of what their relationship contains as she dives down the stairs back towards the entrance hall and Grand Staircase.

“Then don’t accept that limitation. Don’t be okay with that. Katherine, if indeed she’s here and Enzo St. John damn him, what makes me so different?” he finally manages to catch her because damn the façade of a human pace and blurs to stand in front of her so that she damn near runs into him.

“Because the way I love you is different!”

True horror dawns on her face at the level of openness. She loves him, acknowledged and true and something she can’t take back.

And what ought to be a moment of triumph, the real beginning of their love story, the wonder of sharing great cities, music and art, the world’s genuine beauty has been snatched away by the guilt the feeling inspires.

Because of Elena fucking Gilbert.

He might pay a visit to Bejiing after all.

Caroline dodges round him and disappears down the Grand Staircase out into the magnitude of Paris. For a brief moment Klaus considers following her, tracing her scent back to wherever she’s staying and working this out. But they’re the same in so many ways and she needs time.

Onto Plan B. Fishing his mobile phone out of his jeans, Klaus selects a number he hasn’t used in a very long time. Desperate times call for desperate measures.  

“Hello Katerina.”

****

Caroline blurs through the door of the townhouse at top speed, slamming it behind her like the hounds of hell are at her heels and falling against it in relief at not being followed.

“You alright Gorgeous?” Blinking, Caroline realises she’s not alone. Enzo’s leaning on the fireplace, bourbon in hand whilst Gia and Kat are dangling off one of the sofas. Elena and Bonnie feel a million miles away and Caroline couldn’t feel more grateful. Here are three people who really understand the difference of being supernatural and are willing to listen without judgement, without jumping in with morals and reprimands.

“Klaus is here” she announces, waiting for the explosion of outrage, the construction of plans , battle ready from years of Mystic Falls Mayhem.

“We know,” Gia smiles in that wonderfully casual, unshakeable way she has “there’s a letter for you”

Caroline jumps off the door. “What?” her voice is too loud, heart thumping her throat over the fast pace of the day. Katherine slithers off the sofa and slopes over to the central table behind where Gia sits to scoop up a heavy cream envelope Caroline can immediately see is embossed with Klaus’ familiar scratchy script.

“Along with all of these” Kat smiled, surprised and sweet, with waggling eyebrows that promise vengeance if she doesn’t tell all as she indicates the explosion of roses in a crystal vase over her left shoulder.

Katherine swaggers over and presses the envelope into Caroline’s frozen fingers. “You owe me” she mouths, adding to Caroline’s confusion. Her friends melt away, leaving Caroline with another of Klaus’ letters. But this is so different.

Now, rather than contempt and hostility, fighting her heart that makes her rip the envelope open like a band-aid, Caroline finds herself unable to even break the seal.

This letter is different. It’s not her name on the front but **My Immortal Beloved** in heavy black ink, like a love letter of old.

A love letter.

**_Caroline,_ **

**_I know this grieves you, being torn in two like this, clinging to the ideals of the only life you used to know. That monsters are damned by definition. What we love doesn’t define us. More, how we love I think. Look at Katherine, and to a lesser extent Enzo. At me. At how different we are with you. The way you love redeems us, my beloved, my angel. Loving you, and being loved by you, is the rarest jewel I have yet to see._ **

**_My promise stands still, if you’re not ready I can wait. However long it takes._ **

**_But we will always have Paris on my first Valentine’s Day. Especially Notre Dame. Architecture is the best love letter I could give you._ **

**_As my dear friend Beethoven once said - Ever thine, ever mine, ever ours. _ **

**_Yours ever,_ **

**_Klaus_ **

Caroline stares at the letter, and against her will, her eyes drag to the window, where Notre Dame is framed, silent and beautiful – and _theirs_ – in a way Caroline didn’t realise a building could be. The apartment Enzo rented for them was a surprise, and Caroline had originally loved it for the view of the Eiffel Tower, the symbol of her achievement, the anchor of the reality of being in Paris finally. And now she can’t stop turning her head to look at the cathedral that Victor Hugo’s love had rendered immortal.

It’s how we love that defines us he’d said and Caroline has never been ashamed for how she loves people. So why can’t she love Klaus?

_And why can’t eternity start now?_

It had taken her seventeen years to stop worrying about how she lives, and a twenty seven she doesn’t want to feel guilty for how she loves. And if that makes her a monster? So be it.

Unconfined, Klaus had said. _Unbound by trivial human conventions._

Caroline just about remembers to drop her bag before she’s tearing out of the townhouse again, even without knowing where Klaus is staying.

It turns out she doesn’t have to look far. He’s leaning against the railing of the park opposite, eyes fixed on the living room window.

They stop and stare at each other. _Stay_ she begs him mentally, too exhausted to give chase throughout Paris.

Klaus straightens upright but stays put thank God. Caroline dashes across the street and doesn’t relax until she nearly dives into him again, the pair of them catch each other by the arms.

“I – I got your letter”

Klaus’ eyes burn as they absorb her, it’s like an absolution, as he searches her face for a reaction. Of course he knows that, it’s still clutched in her hand.

“I’m sorry but –“ his eyes harden and she immediately hates her impatience, her foolishness at not taking a moment to think of what she wanted to say when she saw him again.

But being fair she hadn’t expected him to be waiting outside for her.

“No, wait, wait please” her fingers anchor themselves in the wool of his jacket, damp from the rain that had chased her home, notes of his cologne and her perfume mingling in the air  “I’m sorry for what I said back there. You’re right. You’re right. It’s not what we love that matters. It’s how we love. And how you love me is enough for me. So as long as how I love you is enough for you, then that’s all that matters in the end and – I promise I won’t let other people’s judgement stop me ever again“ she huffs a breath, the way Klaus’ eyes are blazing into hers is really distracting and she can’t think straight and –

“Good” he breathes before sealing the promise with a kiss.

And just like that, it is.


End file.
